8 ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, (CEYLON BRANCH.) 



the learned against the reception of the lat inscriptions as 

 genuine monuments of a fixed and defined period, the most 

 ancient yet achieved in such an unequivocal form." — (Bengal 

 Asiatic Society's Journal for September, 1837. J 



In 1849 however, after the death both of Prinsep and 

 Tumour, the late Professor H. H. Wilson, the great Sans- 

 krit scholar, read before the Royal Asiatic Society of 

 Great Britain and Ireland, an elaborate paper, extending 

 over 100 pages, giving a proposed re-translation of Prinsep's 

 edicts, together with the translation of one, then recently dis- 

 covered at Kapurdigiri in Afghanistan. In this paper, the 

 learned Professor while admitting the probability of these 

 edicts being issued by a Buddhist king, and for the purpose 

 of disseminating Buddhism, contended that the evidence on 

 which these opinions were expressed by Mr. Prinsep, was 

 not (e conclusive," and that the identification of " Piyadasi " 

 with the Buddhist emperor Asoka, rested on an isolated 

 passage quoted by Mr. Tumour from the JHpa Vanso of 

 Ceylon.* 



Mr. Edward Thomas, the learned Editor of (i Prinsep's 

 Indian Antiquities," says, — " that in a subsequent article 

 on the Bhabra Inscription, the Professor frankly admits that 

 "although the text is not without its difficulties, yet there 

 is enough sufficiently indisputable to establish the fact, that 

 Priyadasi, whoever he may have been, was a follower of 

 Buddha." Mr. Thomas adds, " Our leading Orientalist, 

 it will be seen, still hesitates, therefore to admit the identity 

 of Priyadasi and Asoka, With all possible deference to so 



* The doubts raised by Professor Wilson on the identity of Piyadasi, 

 and Asoka, have induced Dr. R. G. Latham to read before the Royal 

 Asiatic Society an elaborate paper entitled " Date and Personality of 

 Priyadasi," in which he proposes to identify Piyadasi, with Phraates, 

 king of Parthia ! 



